


Hard Sauce

by Feather Qwill (Feather_Qwill)



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Canon Era, Christmas, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-31
Updated: 2008-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feather_Qwill/pseuds/Feather%20Qwill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Christmases, in varying states of disrepair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Sauce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheloya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/gifts).



> For Cheloya, who said: "[W]rite me Vesca trying to bring Dee into Great Western Yuletide Traditions [. . .] Ahem. Or, you know, D at Christmas the first year he didn't have Leon and Chris around to be noisy and adorable. Or both! :D?"

_D doesn’t know why he came._

_Vesca himself is an only child, but his extended family’s large enough to fill every inch of breathing room in the Howell Family household. It’s tight and uncomfortable and sweaty, and the cousins speak loud and slow - as if his English is somehow worse than their own unstudied slang._

_Vesca apologizes after dinner. “I should have told them you were a vegetarian,” he said, “I hope you weren’t too grossed out or anything.”_

_D grinds his teeth together and smiles. “Not at all, I assure you.”_

_Vesca grins, bright and easy and teasing, and says, “Well, I think you’ll like the dessert at least. Come on.”_

_And, as it turns out, he enjoys it quite a lot._

———

Vesca says that sure, he can fill in for the holiday shifts. Mom'll scold, but Agent Williams has a wife and two kids and it really would look good to the boss - new job and all that.

There’s no active cases right now, so it’s just reams and reams of paperwork to fill out and file away. He moved the coffee pot to his desk and brewed it hot and strong.

Jessie from the PR department came in sometime after twenty-one hundred with a couple plates of leftovers for him and the other unlucky late-shifters.

“Had to get away from Julie’s kids,” she explains, “They’re family, and I love them, but by _God_ they get on my nerves sometimes.”

Vesca’s had turkey a thousand times since last year, but he tastes the first forkful all covered in cranberry sauce and gravy and Christmas and D and home, and bile climbs up his throat.

He’s aware, vaguely, that Jessie’s standing there, flirting, watching him. He chokes it down.

———

_Chris lights the candles one by one and D sits them carefully in the tree._

_Leon chews his gum with his mouth open and observes from the couch. “Aint those gonna start a fire?” he asks, not sounding particularly concerned._

_“Aren’t those going to,” Chris corrects._

_The gum drops out of Leon’s mouth and falls to the carpet. D winces._

_“You been brainwashing Chris?” he demands._

_“Now, Detective, I hardly think that the possession of an actual vocabulary is grounds for-”_

_Leon waves a hand to interrupt. “Aww, forget it, “ he says, “I’ll forgive you this time. Holiday spirit an’ all.”_

_D smiles, and decides not to slip Leon the hallucinogenic plant extract this time. “Indeed.”_

_Chris drops the bowl of mashed potatoes onto the rug._

_“Oops,” he says, and grins._

———

D doesn’t know what day it is until he strays out of Chinatown in search of a truly excellent pastry a client had brought him and sees the decorations in the street. 

It shouldn’t matter. The early snowfall has all but melted away and what is left is filthy and brown, and Christmas has never meant anything to him save for what it meant to his clients, except for the one year that it did. 

Still. Christmas spirit, and all that. He should try and . . . spread the cheer.

“Merry Christmas,” D says to the woman in the shop, and she nods but her smile is tight and false. 

His gaze drops; there’s a Star of David hanging on a gold chain around her neck. 

They’re sold out of the pastries.

**Author's Note:**

> The End.
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry if that was rather more depressing than you wanted. XD


End file.
